Octopus Smart Tariffs

There’s no getting away from the fact that energy prices have skyrocketed. Even if you are the savviest homeowner there’s just no escaping the price hikes of 2022.

There are still ways, however, to save money on your energy bill. You could just switch off and use nothing. I know for many this seems like the only option. The standing charge has increased and even without using any energy your energy bill may already to starting to mount up BUT with an Octopus smart tariff you can try and hustle a cheaper price per kWh.

Will an Octopus smart tariff help to reduce my energy bill?

Simply switching to an Octopus smart tariff won’t necessarily save you money. At the moment the daytime rate on all Octopus smart tariffs is above the price you would pay on the energy price cap. So why would anyone opt to pay more?

@sarah_go_green If you have an off-peak smart tariff with Octopus Energy you can charge your EV cheaply BUT you can also use energy in the rest of the home at the same rate of 7.5p a kWh. So delay functions and smart timers are great. #EV #EVcharging #moneysavingtips #energytariff #octopus🐙 #savemoneytips #utilitybills #electric #costoflivingcrisis @Octopus Energy ♬ original sound – sarah_go_green


Well, I am on a smart tariff designed for Electric Vehicle drivers. My daytime rate, on the Intelligent Octopus tariff, is above the energy price cap BUT off-peak between 11.30 pm and 5.30 am I can charge my EV for just 7.5p a kWh. I can also shift a lot of my hungrier appliances to come on at night during my off-peak period. Now the hustle here is that by combining the two price periods I can bring my average price down quite considerably. So my overall rate per kWh per day is well below the price cap.

Octopus Smart tariffs if you don’t own an EV.

If you don’t own an EV not all is lost as Octopus Agile is a time-of-use tariff that is designed specifically for this hustle. The peak rate has increased in the last two weeks from 35p per kWh to 55p per kWh which might at first glance rule it out of the equation. However, you only pay the peak rate price of 55p per kWh if you knowingly use energy at a specific time. Now it is more of a gamble with Octopus Agile as you bet on the fact that prices will drop at some point during the day. You get notified the day before and can plan your energy use based on hourly pricing. Once again what you have to focus on is your average energy price. If you can use more energy when the price drops your average will come down.

The Octopus Agile is fixed for 12 months at a cap of 55p per kWh.

The energy price cap rises in October 2022.

For quite some time the advice has been to do nothing. To just stay on the price cap as it is the cheapest deal. The issue now is that prices are increasing and the energy price cap is going to be amended every 3 months. This means that the stability of knowing your energy rates for the next 6 months will change. They could either keep bounding upwards or they could drop. Now reviewing them every 3 months does mean that if prices drop this will be passed on quicker to consumers but it also works the other way when prices rise.

We all need to change how we use energy.

If anything good is to come out of this energy crisis I hope it’s that we have all stopped to consider how we can use less energy. Millions of people will be doing this in the coming months from pure need rather than desire. It is a miserable state of affairs. It highlights why we need energy security in the UK. We need to both produce and manage our energy better so we are less on other countries for our gas supply.